The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Democratic National Alliance’s (DNA) leader yesterday urged the Government to set a date for when it would nationalise the Baha Mar project, if the parties to the dispute failed to make progress on a resolution.

Branville McCartney thus became the first politician to suggest that the Bahamas exercise its “last resort” option, telling Tribune Business that Bahamian lives and the economy cannot “be held hostage” by foreign interests.

Calling on the Christie administration to give the Chinese a timeline for when the $3.5 billion development’s fate had to be resolved, Mr McCartney said that if no progress was made, “this is one time to exercise the powers of the Prime Minister”.

Any move by the Government to ‘nationalise’, or establish sovereign control over, Baha Mar would be fraught with difficulty, and could have massive negative consequences for this nation’s ability to attract multi-million dollar foreign direct investment (FDI) flows.

The Bahamas has to-date prided itself as being a country where private enterprise is largely sacrosanct, and private property rights are protected by the rule of law.

Any government ‘take over’ of Baha Mar would thus represent a major shift and cultural change, and be something of a gamble should any administration opt to take it.

There would also be a heavy cost involved, and diplomatic fall-out, from offending the Chinese, a country that the Bahamas has been courting heavily for all manner of investments and business.

The DNA leader, though, effectively argued that Baha Mar was a ‘special case’ for government and public policy intervention, given its enormous potential impact for the Bahamian economy and the thousands of jobs that were at stake.

And he warned that the China Export-Import Bank, the $2.45 billion secured creditor that has taken over the project, and is now controlling its destiny, had the financial wherewithal to “sit on it for 100 years and let it rot” if it so chose.

“There’s going to come a time, if there is no headway in resolving this matter, that the Government is going to have to step in,” Mr McCartney told Tribune Business.

“I’d give the bank a timeline, the contractor a timeline, to sort this out, otherwise the Government will step in and deal with it.

“I will not have them hold this country hostage. I will not let a contractor, developer and other institutions come here and hold the country hostage.”

The DNA’s leader may have made his comments with one eye on the general election that is now a year away, but they are likely to strike a chord with the deep-rooted nationalist streak that exists in many Bahamians.

Suggesting what would happen if he were ever Prime Minister, and the parties failed to meet any Baha Mar-related deadline he had set, Mr McCartney told Tribune Business: “I would nationalise this, and negotiate with Bahamians to run this thing; that’s what I’ll do.

“I would make sure that if I took this thing over, Bahamians will lead the way to take it back from the Government. I’ll make sure we devise a way for Bahamians to participate, and joint venture with foreigners to run that if it comes to it.

“This can’t run on any longer. I believe in private enterprise more than anything else, but something’s got to give and the Government can’t leave it up to anyone else.

“This is one time to exercise the powers of the Prime Minister to make sure the country and this economy start to grow.”

Mr McCartney’s comments come as all parties to the Baha Mar dispute, and the Government, are due back before Supreme Court Justice Ian Winder for a hearing today on whether the joint provisional liquidation should continue.

It is likely that it will, even though it has been overtaken by the China Export-Import Bank’s Deloitte & Touche receivership team, whose appointment has been approved by the Supreme Court.

They are in the middle of a formal sales process that has invited interest from all-comers to purchase Baha Mar.

However, the sales process has come under heavy fire from Baha Mar’s original developer, Sarkis Izmirlian, who has implied that China Export-Import Bank is likely to reject all offers, then seek to either strike a private deal with another Chinese group or hold on to the property itself.

Acknowledging that much depends on Chinese intentions, Mr McCartney told Tribune Business that the bank could afford to sit on Baha Mar for years, and still not feel the pain being experienced by many Bahamians.

“The Chinese could sit on this for 100 years and it wouldn’t affect them,” the DNA leader said. “They’ve got prime property, and could let it rot and not give a you know what in terms of them being affected. Those affected are the Bahamian people.”

Mr McCartney argued that the Government should have taken a more impartial, and firm, position when the Baha Mar dispute first publicly erupted in June 2015, adding that the ‘nationalisation’ option should have been made clear to the parties then.

“The last resort is going to be nationalisation, but that should have been the position the Government took when trying to resolve the problem,” he told Tribune Business.

“It should never have come to where we are today. I blame that on the leadership of our country; it could never happen under my watch. No contractor, developer or bank could cause my country to go into a tailspin because of their dispute.”

Mr McCartney blamed Prime Minister Perry Christie’s “failure to lead” at the critical moment, adding: “The buck stops with him.”

He reiterated his belief that the Prime Minister should have locked Mr Izmirlian, the bank and contractor in his office, supplied them with food and water, and refused to release them until there was a resolution.